Welcome to the Richard M. Bowman Center for Local History Online Database!

The History Center is a county-owned reference library and archive, named after the late Richard M. Bowman, a civic leader and avid student of history in Charles City County, VA. This searchable catalog can be used to explore the variety of items in our collection. We also have various databases of interest to historians and genealogists on our main website.

Click here to view available archival documents.

Tips for Searching

The Keyword Search button allows you to perform a general search across multiple fields for any catalog records online. Keyword searches use OR as the default connector between words (e.g. a search for John Tyler will return records associated with all people named John OR Tyler). If you want to find records where both keywords are found, type in AND between the two words. To search for a specific phrase, be sure to put the phrase within quotes (e.g. "Sherwood Forest"). You can also use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard (e.g. a search for histor* would come up with records containing history, histories, historical, etc.). Searches are not case sensitive.

The Advanced Search button can help you be more specific with your search. You can search for a word or phrase within a particular search category or use multiple categories to further narrow down your search results.

The catalog buttons can also help narrow down your search, by only searching with a selected catalog. If you only want to search for Photos, click the Photos button and type in your keyword(s) or phrase. You can also browse records within that catalog without performing a search. Phrase searching, wildcards (*) as well as AND/OR statements are available when performing catalog searches.